


Dull Lines

by SiCanFly



Category: Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb, Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb
Genre: Broken Bones, Dermatillomania, Intrusive Thoughts, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, this is mild vent writing like everything else I write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24387289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiCanFly/pseuds/SiCanFly
Summary: The Fool meets the Bastard in the healers room.
Kudos: 6





	Dull Lines

He’s not sure when it started. He’d had little chance to think about the details until he was already so deep he had no chance of getting out again.

Fingers trace over what someone might see as birthmarks or pock scars that line his scars, nails scratching lightly as he stares at the wall in front of him with blank thoughts. Maybe he was relieved at the chance to be and stay clean now that he was at Buckkeep, afraid of anything else. Maybe that’s why it started.

The Fool digs his nails until welts run across his arms. He lifts a hand to his face and digs under scabs that have barely dried since the morning. Blood beads on his face and collects under his nails, the specks on his face bloom fat and red until the weight drags it down. It looks worse than it is, honestly.

But Shrewd sends him to get seen to before The Fool can pull at the rest of the scabs on his face.

He’s met with little sympathy and the healer doesn’t want to touch him for fear of disease. He worries something is wrong with him as he chews skin away from the inside of his cheeks. He thinks about grabbing a fist of the healer’s hair and yanking until –

This isn’t a what-could-be. There’s no prophecy in the violence of his thoughts.

Then the Bastard is in the room.

Despite his quiet, the room suddenly feels warmer, _electric_ with possibilities.

He’s clutching his hand gingerly to his chest and his eyes are puffy like he’d recently been done crying. Eager to be done with The Fool, the healer instructs the Bastard to sit on the chair opposite The Fool, and to tell her what happened.

The Bastard says to her, eyes averted, that a horse had stepped on his hand. The healer assess that the last finger of his hand was broken, and more than a few of his knuckles sat beyond their sockets.

The healer has little in the way of bedside manner, and the Bastard grits his teeth while she resets his joints and binds his broken finger. The Fool pulls faces at him from across the room.

And for as long as he stayed sat in that room, so scabbed that he put the Pocked Man to shame, The Fool felt no need to scratch.


End file.
